In the Sonagachi red-light district in Calcutta, India, prostitutes have organized to mobilize against AIDS, altering the power structure by challenging any pimp or madam who would insist on a customer’s right to sex without a condom.

At a company in the United States, in an attempt to avoid layoffs, the great majority of employees agreed to cut their own salaries by 20 percent; the offer was rejected by the CEO, who chose instead to fire 20 percent of the workforce, stating that “it was very important that management’s prerogative to manage as it saw fit not be compromised by sentimental human considerations” (Harvey, 1989, p.

In the wilds of Wyoming, groups of ranchers and environmentalists, who historically were bitter adversaries, have teamed up to fight the problems posed by an increase in the population of wolves in their neighboring national parks.

All of these conflicts have one basic element in common: power. Power to challenge, power to resist, and power through cooperating together. In fact, virtually all conflicts directly or indirectly concern power. Conflict is often a means of seeking or maintaining the balance or imbalance of power in relation­ships. It may also be waged as a symbolic expression of one’s identity and right to self-determination. Power is commonly used in conflict as leverage for achiev­ing one’s goals. It influences the types of conflicts to which people of differing levels of power are more or less frequently exposed to, as well as the relative availability of the strategies and tactics employed. The powerful also largely determine what is considered to be important, fair, and just in most settings and thus shape and control many methods of resolution. Of course, changes in power, particularly when dramatic, can also affect conflict, substantially affect­ing people’s motivations, aspirations, and tactics. Because of its ubiquity, it is paramount that when we address conflict, we consider power.

This chapter provides an overview of some key components of the relation­ship between power and conflict. It is organized in four sections, beginning with a definition of power and a discussion of those dimensions of power that are important to considering conflict and its constructive resolution. In the second section, I describe some of the personal and environmental factors that affect people’s behavioral tendencies and responses to power in social relations. In the third section, I discuss the relevance of these ideas to conflict resolution, discussing some of the central principles of the dynamics of power and conflict and outlining the tendencies of members of both high-power and low-power groups in conflict. I conclude the chapter by discussing the implications of these ideas for training in conflict resolution.